About Me

Friday, January 6, 2017

Winter Weather

It’s
cold.

Every
few years, weather patterns shift and cold air rushes into the valley,
reminding us that we are pretty darn far north. The sky clears so that we can
see just how low the sun is in the sky; at this time of year, it barely clears
my neighbor’s two story house. Without
the blanket of cloud cover, all of our heat rushes away.

The
light is beautiful. One morning, I walked to work in early rose-gold sun that
danced off of the ponderosa pines which line the baseball field and lit up the
dusting of snow on the hills around town. Evergreens and snow at dawn—it
doesn’t get much better. The next morning, snow swirled around our houses,
covering everything, including the Christmas lights, with a dusting of white frost.
When the sun came out in the afternoon, it was blinding.

We’ve
had to do some serious snugging down against the cold. I covered all of the
garden beds with plastic sheeting and wrapped a spare piece around the
wheelbarrow of strawberry plants. In the greenhouse, we pulled all of the
plants close together on the ground and covered them with remay cloth. I
wrapped the beehive in two layers of frost protection blanketing, leaving just
a small opening for them to come in and out.
We also emptied the larder, which vents to the outside, into the basement
so that the onions and squashes would not freeze. Finally, we plugged the fireplace again,
although we will take it out for Twelfth Night on Friday.

When
it is this cold (below 20 degrees), the chickens are not happy outside
overnight. After dark, we pull on boots and wool hats and march out to the
coop. Mark reaches in and captures one chicken, I pick up the other, and we
settle their wings close to their bodies under our arms. Mark heads for the
house first. I stand outside for another moment, holding the warm and sleepy
chicken close, and glance up to the sky. High about, Orion carves his way
across the sky and a quarter moon lights the yard. Once inside, we settle them
on a log perch, over newspaper, and shut off the lights. They will spend the
night down there, protected from the deep cold, until morning, when I release
them into the back yard to cluck and shake their wings free once more. It is
good to know that we are all settled into our little homestead on these bitter
nights.